From the heart of Europe, Sarajevo, thirteen of the greatest European directors give us their unique look on the change of the continent over the past century.
13 Europeans directors explore the theme of Sarajevo and what this city represents in European history over the past hundred years, and what Sarajevo incarnates today in Europe. From different generations and origins, these eminent filmmakers
offer many singular styles and visions."The Bridges of Sarajevo" will be a cinematic contribution to the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of WWI. The film is a collaboration of well known European directors, who all contribute on short to the feature film.

PRODUCTION NOTES:
This feature film project, entitled Bridges of Sarajevo (working title), is part of the events that in 2014 will celebrate the beginning of the First World War. It is a film composed of several short films, each made by a European filmmaker.
The entire film is built around Sarajevo and what the city represents in Europe’s history through the 20th century, and nowadays. Naturally, the first point of reference is the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand the 28th of June of 1914, considered to be the trigger to the First World War. This event and its connection to the war will be present, but the film, far from being limited to this theme, will take into account the long history of the city. Likewise, even if the siege of 1992-1996 and the civil war in former Yugoslavia will occupy an important place, so will what Sarajevo embodies in terms of success, frailties and conflicts between communities and cultures, seen mainly through the prism of its current situation, which will feed the artistic proposals of the filmmakers involved. The entire project will highlight the symbolic role of the city in contemporary Europe.
Without conditioning the directors’ approaches, it is possible to consider several themes or perspectives. From start to finish of the 20th century, the relationship between the city and the war, Sarajevo as the starting point of World War I, regarded by many as the true beginning of the century and Sarajevo as the symbolic place of the last European war of the same century. Also, the "art de vivre" (Jean-Luc Godard) that the city embodied, space of culture and exchanges between cultures and communities that in many ways prefigured the European construction - or rather the dream that evokes, regardless of the vagaries of reality. Thus the polarization of many artists, including writers, who came and contributed to the unique relationship of this city and culture.
Likewise, the reference to the bridges in the title suggests: the Latin Bridge next to which the assassination of the archduke took place in the 14th of June; the bridges of Sarajevo, where tragic scenes of some of the most tragic episodes of the siege took place in plain sight, but also, more indirectly, the symbol of the Mostar bridge, its destruction and reconstruction, or even The Bridge on the Drina, great novel of the Serbian writer Ivo Andric, metaphor of "living together”, that would be destroyed at the outbreak of 1914 war.
Sarajevo is also a reality today, urban reality that combines Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, socialist and post-modern architecture, urban-rural relations, but also Bosnia - Serb Republic relationships; contemporary city where ghosts and traces of the pasts live somehow, if not a big amount of embedded pasts. Both, a city marked by history and a symbol of an idea of "living together"; Sarajevo, capital of a country which is not yet a member of the European Union and, however, embodies an idea of Europe, of the European project; included in the context of its relations with the Orient and as a place where diverse populations live together, including a large Romanian community.
Sarajevo is also a name that lives in the imagination of so many people, even those who have never set foot in it: there are many romantic mental pictures, poetical, political, (Sissi…), associated with this name. Sarajevo is still a place of reference for current pictures, press photos, reports, newsreels and television, also fiction movies, From Mayerling to Sarajevo, from Bosnia to Hollywood.
This will be a 115 minutes film composed by 14 short films of 8 minutes each. Among the authors many of the great names of European cinema will be included, and at least one Bosnian director. The short films will be linked by a "thread" that will confer unity to the film without interfering with the uniqueness of each author’s contribution. This thread will of a graphic nature (and possibly sonorous), and will be entrusted to a design and visual arts qualified artist.
Jean-Michel Frodon (Artistic Director)